Something 'Wicked' This Way Comes: And for area stagehands and costumers, it means a boon in business

View full sizeAnne Brumel as Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West and Tiffany Haas as Glinda, the good witch (Photo courtesy of Joan Marcus)

When the national tour of "Wicked" is in town Feb. 15 to March 4, there will be more than Broadway stars and New York veterans doing their thing on the BJCC Concert Hall Stage.

Behind the scenes, about 75 local folks will be employed as stagehands, electricians, carpenters, musicians and more.

View full sizeAnne Brumel as Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West (Photo courtesy of Joan Marcus)

"We couldn't do the show without the local crew," says Erica Norgaard, company manager for the touring production of the Tony Award-winning Broadway show about the witches in "The Wizard of Oz." "There would be a sad-sounding orchestra, and the actors canít get in and out of all of the costumes on their own."

So it falls to people like Birmingham's Kim Rollins Dometrovich to fill in the gaps. As a member of IATSE Local 78, the stagehands' union, she works on many touring shows that come into the Birmingham area. When "Wicked" was here in 2009, she worked in wardrobe. This time around, she'll be doing hair.

"There are a lot of wig changes in this show," she says. "It ought to be fun."

About 75 people will be hired to help unload and set up the "Wicked" production, which will arrive in 13 trucks, Norgaard says. After that, 34 people will stay with the show for its 24 performances in Birmingham.

"Some are doing laundry, some are fixing costumes," says Kris Olenicki, general manager of Broadway in Birmingham. "There are dressers during the shows helping with all of the costume changes, and a lot of fixing any costumes that might get ripped. We also hire 10 musicians to play with folks from the show. They have seven musicians that they bring in with the show."

Whether shows are Equity or non-Equity—meaning whether they employ union actors or not—Olenicki and Broadway in Birmingham always hire union stagehands for their productions, though rarely as many as work with a show like "Wicked."

"It really varies," she says. "When we have something like Bill Cosby, we have maybe four or five stagehands working, but we always have somebody."

"Wicked" is one of the largest shows touring these days, Norgaard says.

View full sizeA portion of the "Wicked" set (Photo courtesy of Joan Marcus)

" 'Phantom of the Opera' is bigger than us, and we're pretty similar to 'The Lion King' but bigger than 'Jersey Boys'," she says. "We say we're the third-largest out there."

For Dometrovich, the larger the show means the longer it will stay in Birmingham, which means more work and more interaction with the touring cast and crew.

"The shows that are here for two or three days, you don't get to know the people that well," she says. "But with 'The Lion King,' for instance, we got to know them very well because they were here for so long."

Just don't ask Dometrovich for tickets.

"Every now and then, they'll let us buy house seats, but we don't get tickets," she says. "Everybody asks me all the time."

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